All of these incremental improvements in technology are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by these big corporations to provide you with better goods and services and make a profit for their investors.

I mean really, was the "The Beverly Hillbillies" that much better in Season 3 when they switched to color? for goodness sakes what's the difference on a 19" Console TV using an antennae with a rotor? The writing wasn't one bit better and to tell you the truth I think the subtle loss of contrast of B&W over Color has hurt the TV industry in the long run.

That is the problem, scared poorly trained seamen. The navies of the world need to set the stage. It needs to be known that pirates in International waters will be dealt with by the use of lethal force.

Once that has been established the insurance companies, in lieu of paying ransom, can use that money to hire trained security consultants that are properly armed.

Several deck mounted M2HB .50 cals should be an adequate deterrent and have way more range than any weapon system that the pirates are able to field.

The mounts could be on all ships protected by that particular company. You would just mount them and unmount them before entering any ports where they were not welcome. That would be part of the allure of this plan. You don't need to have a security consultant or .50 cals on each ship. You just need to have either the weapon or a mock up mounted on all protected vessels.

Hell I am fifty years old and would be glad to take an occasional gulf cruise. Have the captain throw out a few plastic barrels and take turns with the crew seeing who can sink them the fastest. Sounds like a fun afternoon to me.

I am ready to use Ubuntu as my desktop.

I have tried almost every major rev since 6.04 waiting for it to be "ready for the desktop." Last month after spending 3 days trying to recover my Windows data after a full Vista reinstall (third time BTW) I loaded up Intrepid.

Then it dawned on me. It is never going to replace Windows. It is going to offer an alternative to Windows. The question is when was I going to be ready?

I know one of the things that has kept me from switching is the thought of losing the thousands of dollars in software and a few "must have apps." Those few must have apps have locked me in to an expensive world of pain requiring ridiculous amounts of system maintenance just to maintain MS Money and Outlook and play a few games (which have versions for my PS3 anyway.)

Sure it took some time to migrate all data and scale the learning curve. But not as much time I have blown reinstalling Windows over the years (since that is the only solution to MANY of Windows problems.)

So the answer is more and more users will be "ready for Linux as a desktop" as more functional versions are released and as they tire of the increasingly "feature" laden fragility of the Microsoft offerings.

As one of my techs told me a long time ago, 'Windows just feels like it is about to break all the time."

Maybe in winds that are too low to start the blades spinning, but breezy enough to keep the blades turning, they could apply electrical power to spool up the blades in order to overcome any startup inertial forces?

(One long sentence seemed easier than actually writing a paragraph.)